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This dream was in bright, vivid techincolor. Most of the dream interpretation lore I've learned says that important dreams are often like this.

Okay. This is one of the most odd dreams I have ever had, and I've had some doozies. I usually interpret my own dreams, but this one shook me a little bit and I feel I may be too close to the situation to be accurate. This was an epic dream. By that I mean it was a dream where I went on a kind of hero-journey, not that the dream was worthy of being an epic story. Although, in my mind, it kind of is.

Okay, here goes.

I was myself. (usually when I dream, I dream I am other people or animals, but this time I was just me). I lived in the woods in a cozy, comfortable little house and made my living as an artist. Four cats lived with me, two white cats and two blue cats. And they talked. They talked a lot. They were always criticizing my artwork until I got it perfect, but I loved them and they loved me.

One day a woman came to my door and asked to see my art, which she was a fan of. She was in her mid-twenties, about my age. She was tall and beautiful. Extremely, almost painfully beautiful. She had long red hair, pale skin, and she was very graceful. She was temperamental and whimsical and loved to dance. And for some reason she had strong connections with a wolf. She never changed into a wolf or had wolf-like features or anything like that, but when I think of the dream I associate her very, VERY strongly with a she-wolf.

I fell in love with her. I'm straight--well, I suppose I'm heteroflexible (straight, but hey, s**t happens). It's rare (but not entirely unheard of) for me to look at another woman with sexual desire. I'm also in a very fulfilling relationship with a wonderful man who I'm head-over-heels in love with in real life, so the idea of me falling in love with a woman in a dream is a bit strange. But I did.

We talked and walked in the woods together and even kissed for an entire day, but then she said she had to leave.

After she was gone, I found I couldn't bear to be without her. I asked my cats what to do and they told me I should go after her and they would come with me and help if they could. So I got into my car (yeah, I had a car. It was a smallish, sparkly, dark-blue, four door sedan, if that means anything) and went off in search of her with my talking cats.

It turns out the girl was someone of importance--I don't want to say "princess" because it wasn't at all like she was royalty. Her mother owned a huge business empire, they were very wealthy and lived in a huge mansion. The inside of the mansion was really complicated, like a maze, and when I walked in, I immediately got lost.

I wandered around and looked for her for ages, and I kept having to get directions from her two brothers and her father. All three were tall, blond, slender, kind of feminine, and blue-eyed. I couldn't always remember the directions I was given but thankfully my cats did, and they kept me from getting too turned around.

Finally, I found the girl sitting in a room with her mother. Her mother looked a bit like like a human version of the Willendorf Venus, except she was massively tall. Like, eight to ten feet tall. She was quite ugly--almost trollish with a big nose, leathery skin, enormous black eyes, sharp teeth, and a perpetual scowl. but there was something majestic and powerful and imposing about her.

The mother was constantly sewing, knitting, or embroidering these beautiful designs onto various pieces of clothing for her children and family to wear. She was very proud of them, and constantly showing off. The designs were realistic and gorgeous, and everything she made was stylish and designer-looking. She and all the members of her family wore them.

The girl I loved was happy to see me and asked if I could stay in their house. However, her mother did not approve of me. She was very snobby and harsh and insulting, and looked down on me like I was dirt. She kept asking me questions and giving me backhanded complements whenever I answered them. She said if I was to stay I had to perform all these various tasks for her. She didn't know I was in love with her daughter, she just thought I wasn't worthy to be hanging around her house until I did this stuff for her.

I wasn't sure I could do it--whenever I looked at the mother I felt very small and intimidated. I became tongue-tied and so quiet she could not hear me speak and kept yelling at me to speak up. I know I sounded like a weakling when I tried to speak to her, which was strange because I never felt shy or scared in any other part of the dream. Even my cats cowered and hid behind me in her presence. But then her daughter interrupted her mom, said that of course I would be able to complete the tasks, and led me away.

Some of the tasks were stupidly simple, and some were really hard. I don't remember them all. There were a LOT. Sometimes I had to travel far away, or solve weird puzzles. I had to pick some strange flowers, I had to get the mother these rare chocolates and...something else about a bird. I think?

Sometimes her father and brothers would show up and help me out, or the girl I was in love with would, but sometimes I had to get through them on my own. I always ad the four cats, though, two blue and two white. They could remember everything, they spoke to me, and they saved my life several times.

I don't really remember much about the tasks themselves, just that I got really frustrated, angry, and upset. My anger, my stubbornness, the support of my cat-friends, and my love for the red-haired girl were the only things that gave me the strength to face her mother and perform my tasks everyday.

The girl I loved would hang out with me during the day and usually help me, but she also kept flirting with other people even though she knew I loved her and was a bit flippant and occasionally as insulting to me as her mother was. She did genuinely seem to want me to stay though, and she let me sleep in her room, which was enormous and full of books and strange plants and multicolored lights. There was a huge rug on the floor that she had made herself. It looked like a mosaic and had bits of every color you can imagine and some you couldn't. We would talk all the time, and I never got tired of being around her.

The red-haired girl also had these wild, rave-type parties some nights. Crazy, loud, almost orgiastic things with hundreds of guest. Attractive men and women of all shapes, sizes, and ages. Some of them wore body paint in crazy symbols and designs that would glow on their skin under the light. Everyone, including the red-haired girl, was either naked or wearing very little clothing. The music was loud and rhythmic, sort of techno-tribal. There was a lot of drinking and drug-use, and everyone danced and made love all night. The parties had a very pleasant, positive feeling though. Wild, but not harmful or dangerous.

I enjoyed myself immensely at the parties, and it was wonderful stress relief to go to them after doing the tasks all day. I never participated in the dancing or imbibed anything but water, though. For some reason, I knew I shouldn't, or possibly that I couldn't, not until I was done with the tasks.

At the beginning of each party, she would hold out her hand to me and ask me to dance and I would demur and say no, not yet. She'd smile and go off and dance by herself. I sat up in the rafters and watched her, and loved every second of it. She loved to dance and she was completely wild and gorgeous and graceful and primal when she did it.

The only time I didn't like it was when she danced with other people--men and women both. Their dancing was always very sensual and sexual. I would be sad and jealous, but it was so mesmerizing and beautiful I couldn't look away.

So, at night I partied or talked with the girl in her room, and during the day I did thee tasks the mother gave me.

Finally, after what seemed like months of this, I completed all the tasks. I had become much more physically strong, much more quick and skilled, much smarter and wiser, and less shy and fearful of her mother. I was able to look her mother in the eye without flinching. The bloody woman still didn't like me but she grudgingly let me stay in the house without doing anymore tasks, though she told me she didn't like that I was so close with her daughter.

I knew I had to figure out a way to impress her. Then I had an idea. I took some paper, pencils, pens, and paint and spent three days in a locked room with white walls and no furniture, drawing. For three days I had no food, no water, and no sleep. When I was done with the paper, I drew an the floor, walls, and ceiling. When I ran out of ink, paint, and pencil, I stuck my finger, and painted with my own blood. I can't remember everything that I drew, but I do remember trees, spirals, animals, eyes, people, buildings, and clocks.

The girl, her two brothers, her father, and my cats all knocked on the door and tried to persuade me to come out, and offered me all sorts of rewards and temptations if I would, but I didn't listen and I kept drawing. After three days, I came out of the room, and the girl's mother came in to see what I had done. And she was impressed with my work.

She finally warmed up to me, and then I took the girl I loved by both hands and told her straight to her face that I was in love with her and that I wanted to be with her forever.

We went to her room and danced together on the mosaic-rug. It was the first time I danced in the dream (I had never danced at the parties, just watched her).

And then I woke up.

Yeah. I'm almost sure there are some elements I'm forgetting, but most of it is vivid and clear in my mind. So....help, please? I don't even know where to begin with this one. eek

I believe that most dreams are the brain talking to itself, with that in mind lets look at the common elements, your art, beauty, love and approval. I believe that by starting with the premise of your art we can assume that you are fairly happy with it but you believe it could be quite better. You seek approval and realize that though hard work (the tasks) you can become quite better. Your shy at first but after completing the mural you speak out boldly. The fact that you do not dance until you have proven yourself to the critique (the mother) shows that you need to prove yourself before you will allow yourself to be happy (dance). The woman you love might represent the art itself. You see others who are able to do the art easily (dance with and flirt with her) and it saddens you but also drives you on to work harder until you win her hand. The cats, father and brothers might represent friends who are supportive during your efforts.
Well did I give you something to think about?

The "three days of fasting" goes on in a lot of cultures, but I didn't think about it until you reminded me. :3 thanks. In a way, it WAS a sort of vision quest.

It's good to record them right away so you don't forget them. Now you have a chance to examine what your brain was trying to tell you smile